A company has successfully flown a mind controlled drone, a step that its scientists say will lead to passenger carrying airplanes steered only by pilots’ brains.

In a rather stunning demonstration yesterday, Portuguese business Tekever fitted a special cap to a pilot to measure his brain activity, allowing him to steer a drone through a mission in the sky using his thoughts alone.

The company’s eventual target for the drone technology is applying it to pilots flying private and commercial aircraft using their minds alone, but it acknowledges there is a lot of work ahead.

For yesterday’s test demonstration, in order to steer the drone, pilot Nuno Loureiro focused entirely on simple thoughts within set formats, which he learned during extensive training. This means the drone received clear signals, from his brain waves, that it could process quickly.

“This is an amazing, high-risk and high-payoff project,” Tekever chief operating officer Ricardo Mendes said at the launch. The project needs extensive further technology development, he explained, but added that it “represents the beginning of a tremendous step change in the aviation field, empowering pilots and de-risking missions”.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

The idea of delivery drones may still be alive and kicking with Amp Holdings’ Horsefly. via Popular Science:

Amazon’s drone delivery service was never going to work. Not in the United States, at least, and not in the near-future timeframe announced by CEO Jeff Bezos in a credulous 60 Minutes segment in December 2013. When Bezos made the prediction that self-guided drones would start delivering packages to customers’ doors as early as 2015, it was clear to everyone building, flying and hoping to fly drones that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had no plans to allow for something like Prime Air to function. Amazon’s program requires autonomous flight in densely populated areas—robots flying themselves, over lots of human beings. There’s no better recipe for disaster, at this early stage in the development and deployment of commercial drones.

And yet, Amazon’s PR stunt went off without a hitch. [Note: Popular Science just ran a Q&A with the VP of Prime Air, who seems like an excellent and conscientious person. My crotchety opinions of Bezos, 60 Minutes, and the way Amazon’s drone program was debuted are my own.] Despite denouncements in the media, the company’s plan become synonymous with the push for commercial drone rules in the U.S. Now that those initial regulations have arrived, the attention is still on Amazon, and whether it’s going to take its delivery drones to another country, presumably one with less stringent safety requirements. The FAA’s requirement that unmanned aircraft stay within a human’s unbroken line of sight throughout its operation is a deal-breaker for Prime Air, as is the restriction on carrying external payloads. That Amazon’s scheme is grounded is not news. It was always going to be.

But there’s hope yet for drone delivery. Cincinnati-based Amp Holdings is currently developing a drone, called Horsefly, that deploys from a compartment in the roof of an electric delivery truck. After each delivery, the aircraft would return to the truck for its next package. It’s strong enough to carry parcels as heavy as 10 pounds (double what Amazon is shooting for), and durable enough to fly through, wind, rain and snow on its appointed rounds.

It’s easy to see why this system hasn’t fired the public’s imagination, or come close to edging out coverage of Amazon’s vision. Delivery trucks—even the electric ones that Amp makes—are unassuming workhorses, and a drone that more efficiently distributes packages within a mile or two radius of that truck is less evocative than the thought of fleets of robots dotting the skyline of major cities.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Adam has received his new DJI Inspire 1 quadcopter, so we take it to a remote location outside the city to test it out! This quad has the ability to split flight and camera controls between two operators, so Adam and Norm work together to capture a few aerial shots with the Inspire 1’s 4K camera.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is testing a drone they’ve coined the Mars Helicopter that could be headed to Mars. via The Verge:

Rover teams still have a tough time with the Martian surface even though they’re flush with terrestrial data. The alien surface is uneven, and ridges and valleys make navigating the terrain difficult. The newest solution proposed by JPL is the Mars Helicopter, an autonomous drone that could “triple the distances that Mars rovers can drive in a Martian day,” according to NASA. The helicopter would fly ahead of a rover when its view is blocked and send Earth-bound engineers the right data to plan the rover’s route.

The rover teams could also use images from the helicopter to select features for further study, giving them a much closer option than the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and its HiRISE camera, which is over 150 miles above the surface.

Prototype versions of the Mars Helicopter are being tested now. The idea is proposed as an “add-on” to future rover missions, so even if it gets approved it wont be flying any time soon. There’s a lot of work to be done between now and then anyway. Compared to Earth, Mars has a much thinner atmosphere and much weaker gravity. What’s more, the planet’s harsh environment means a drone also must be engineered to be rugged enough to withstand Martian conditions while remaining light enough to fly.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Drones are SO hot right now. Photography, film, and package delivery are just a few of the pursuits these unmanned airborne devices are revolutionizing. And if this new Ericsson marketing film is on the right track, it’s only going to get bigger. Much bigger.

The Drone Boss 3000 is basically an unmanned freight drone, able to move ship container-sized packages and even entire houses. Of course, it doesn’t exist yet, but as this short B2B video by agency DDB Stockholm assures us, it’s on the way. The soothsaying is an ad for the brand’s Industry Watch newsletter that aims to tell clients what’s coming on the business technology horizon.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

French express delivery service GeoPost successfully transported a four pound package over a distance of 4,000 feet during a test.

As part of its ongoing GeoDrone project, GeoPost partnered with Atechsys to develop an electric delivery drone capable of autonomously transporting a parcel up to dimensions of 40 x 30 x 20 cm (16 x 12 x 8 in) and 4 kg (9 lb) in weight within a 20 km (12 mile) radius. The project is looking at the use of drones to access isolated areas such as mountains, islands and rural areas, as well as providing a means of responding to emergency situations.

Demonstrating the possible use of drones in real world conditions, the test involved automated take-off, flight phase, landing and return to base. Unfortunately, GeoPost hasn’t released any specs on the prototype itself but we can tell you that the 3.7 kg (8.2 lb) six-rotor prototype is reported to have successfully transported a 2 kg (4.4 lb) package over a distance of 1,200 m (about 4,000 ft) at the CEEMA site in the south of France.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

On Monday night in Boston, MA, 3D Hubs hosted a meet up to bring members of the local 3D printing and drone communities together. The Middlesex Lounge provided a perfect atmosphere for an event that was a great balance of informative talks and a fun social hangout. Boston is a leading city in the world of 3D printing, and the packed room definitely showed it. Nikki Finnemore, the newly hired 3D Hubs community manager for the United States, came up from New York to attend the event, and was joined by key figures from Formlabs, Markforged, and Onshape….

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

Shopping for a “drone-obsessed” friend or family member? Christmas is almost upon us, and I have decided to think of a general guide to choose a gift that will make happy anyone interested in cool gadgets, quadcopters and Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Catch them off guard with gifts that will put a smile on their faces.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

GoPro Inc. is developing its own line of consumer drones to expand from its core business of making wearable video cameras popular with surfers and other sports enthusiasts, according to people familiar with its plans.

The company intends to start selling multirotor helicopters equipped with high-definition cameras late next year, aiming for a price tag between $500 and $1,000, these people said.

The entry of a big consumer-electronics brand to the drone market signals how mainstream—and lucrative—the industry has become in just a few years.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

​The decision, by the National Transportation Safety Board, determined that the FAA’s existing “aircraft” regulations can apply to model aircraft, drones, and remote controlled aircraft, which is perhaps the most restrictive possible outcome for drone pilots in a legal saga that has dragged on for more than a year.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

The drone flies over an industrial area, which appears to be the Donetsk airport—the site of fierce off and on fighting between Ukrainian forces and allegedly Russian backed insurgents associated with the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

“LOOP>>60Hz: Transmissions from the Drone Orchestra was a collaboration between airborne architecture and music,” explains Cale, a multi-instrumentalist, and one of the founding members of the Velvet Underground. In a new documentary, above, The Creators Project captures Cale and Young’s unlikely partnership, which includes an immersive live music and drone performance and its accompanying online experience, City of Drones, developed in partnership with FIELD.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Standford and Ecovative Design researchers built a biological drone that is also biodegradable.

Our team modeled, prototyped, and collaborated with Ecovative Design to grow a mycelium-based chassis for our biological drone. Below you’ll find process photos, part designs, and links to open source model files for downloading and additively manufacturing your own biological or bio-inspired unmanned aerial vehicle. Finally, you can see images of the biological, biodegradable UAV that we built and flew!

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Jonathan Meringer shared a very unusual drones project with us: “This is a video of the development of a 3D printed, autonomous scout drone. At its heart is the Teensy 3.1 as well as the MPU-9150 IMU and BMP180 barometer.”

Drones are offering unprecedented aerial perspectives to amateurs, but their awkward shapes, high price and reliance on support equipment often make them impractical. Our mission at Backcountry Drones is to develop a product to compliment your current interests, not replace them. This requires a drone which is reliable, easy to use and can live its life moving from car seat to equipment bag and back again.

…This scout drone is about having an aerial aide always with you for any outdoor excursion. Designed to be hand launched and run autonomously, the First Ascent is capable of quickly ascending to several hundred feet where it can capture an aerial image of your surroundings before returning.

The First Ascent’s compact body and simple design is due to its co-axial configuration. It requires just two motors and speed controllers which reduces the total size, weight and complexity compared to traditional multirotors. Additionally, the co-axial design allows the drone’s components in be located along a central shaft where they are easily protected by an outer aerodynamic shell….

Featured Adafruit Product!

Teensy 3.1 + header: Teensy 3.1 is a small, breadboard-friendly development board designed by Paul Stoffregen and PJRC. Teensy 3.1 brings a low-cost 32 bit ARM Cortex-M4 platform to hobbyists, students and engineers, using an adapted version of the Arduino IDE (Teensyduino) or programming directly in C language. Teensy 3.1 is an upgrade over 3.0: now with 64K of RAM, 256K of Flash, 5V tolerant digital inputs, 12 bit DAC, dual ADC, and CAN bus support. Teensy 3.1 is a drop-in replacement upgrade for 3.0 and can run any sketches designed for 3.0. Based on a 32 bit ARM chip, Teensy 3.1 aims to greatly increase the computing capability and peripheral features, but maintain the same easy-to-use platform that has made Teensy 2.0 so successful. (read more)

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Pentagon is seeking ideas in developing drones that can detect chemical and biological weapons:

A request for information issued this week for the Thunderstorm Technology Demonstration Program asks industry, academia and government R&D organizations for potential demonstration candidates in two areas: small to mid-size drones that can detect chemical or biological agents, and emerging technologies that could counter small, inexpensive drones carrying a chemical or biological weapon of mass destruction.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Large, unmanned aerial vehicles, aka UAVs or drones, look like regular (albeit, menacing) airplanes. But there are also small drones that look like big insects, and they’re being programmed to act like them too. Insectile drones could evolve into useful minions to track, map, and respond to climate change.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Researchers in Borneo are using drones to map out areas affected by a type of malaria parasite. via LiveScience:

Researchers on the island of Borneo are using flying robots to map out areas affected by a type of malaria parasite (Plasmodium knowlesi), which most commonly infects macaque monkeys. In recent years, public health officials in the Malaysian state of Sabah have seen a rise in the number of cases of humans infected with this deadly parasite, which is spread, via mosquitos, from macaques to people.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Fly through the woods in a high speed race without having to leave your seat! via NewScientist:

NOW you can satisfy the need for speed while staying stock-still: by racing super-fast drones through fields and forests. For the pilots streaming the view from an on-board camera through headsets, it’s just like flying.

The first large-scale first-person video (FPV) drone race in the US kicked off in Los Angeles on 11 October. Organised by LA resident Ryo Rex through his start-up, Aerial Grand Prix, it’s the latest event for a sport that has spread around the world in the past year. It attracts speed freaks who crave the thrill of zipping between trees, fences and other obstacles at up to 160 kilometres an hour – but without risking life and limb in the process.

“Your body is on the ground, but your mind is up there,” says Edward Lyons, who is getting his own racing group, FPV America, off the ground in Maine. “It’s liberating.”

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

As far as I could tell, the juvenile red-tailed hawk came out unscathed, and having defeated his prey, was happy to retreat. (As soon as he flew at me, I throttled down the props to try to minimize any harm to the bird.) The quadcopter came out unscathed as well. Funds generated through YouTube ads will be donated to the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

“I disassembled Version One and got right to making a new one,” said DeRosa. “I tried to make the frame as sturdy as possible, while using as little plastic as possible to keep it light. Though I still just eyeballed it, I took a bit more care to make sure the props were all more or less evenly spaced and standing straight up. Version Two flies really well. Any issues with balance are more due to the drone’s components. Updating the firmware on the motherboard would probably fix the current minor issues.”

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

That’s the plan for Friday, when a small pilotless aircraft, or drone, owned by the German logistics company DHL is expected to take off and ferry medicine to Juist, a sparsely populated island off the northwestern coast of Germany.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Jeremy Hajek sent us a nice message about his embedded systems class. His students have been building many of their projects using Adafruit gear. Check out a few of their recent projects! (Follow the link to the site for videos for each project, hosted locally on the professor’s blog.)

Hi my name is Jeremy Hajek, I am a professor at Illinois Institute of Technology. I run a 25 seat embedded systems class for the last 3 years and we have pretty much bought everything from your company, Arduino kits, parts, solder equipment, xbees, even 3DR drones.

Solar Powered Mesh Sensor Array Network

This group will be attacking the problems of building retrofitting and wire/cable runs. A sensor platform that will be powered by a Solar panel and battery is the basis of the design. The platform will connect wirelessly via an Xbee wireless mesh network (802.15) back to a central server. This will allow for data to be served up via your web browser in real-time/per device.

CureWise – Smart Concrete

Smart concrete is created by embedding a battery powered sensor platform with an Xbee radio for Mesh Networking and reporting of sensor data back to a single server. Concrete takes about 28 days to completely cure. This device will help engineers to understand the internal conditions of their concrete wirelessly, without the need for any external probe to be inserted.

Intelligent Indoor Growing Module

This group will be creating a system to handle the care of growing plants in an automated way driven by a Arduino device. They will be controlling grow lamps, relays to control water pumps, as well as internet connectivity to collect and plot data & display status.

Google Glass Heads Up Display

This group is will be developing the infrastructure and a Google Glass application data that can be displayed via a heads up display and accessed via voice control.

Framework for automated delivery via quadcopters

This project entails using a 3DR IRIS quadcopter and way-point software and how it generates a flight plan. Two GPS coordinates and autogenerates our own flight plan as well as the inverse return flight plan as well thereby automating the copters movement.

Visual Image Array Creation and Persistence of Vision

A visual image array will be presented by this team. The device can calculate a display matrix that will wirelessly send data to and LED device. As it is moved the LEDs will flicker in a pattern that will produce a complex image in the air. The Processing language, Raspberry Pi, and a series of LEDs multiplexed together comprise this device. Solving the processing delay challenges in data transfer and data processing.

Home Automation via Bluetooth

This will involve using Android technology and integrate Android controls (phone) to control HVAC and other home assorted devices. Remote control will give the user practical application.

Spaxels (a portmanteau word from space pixels) are LED-equipped quadcopters. They make up a drone swarm that can “draw” three-dimensional figures in midair. They create an extraordinary visual experience and open up an unprecedented new dimension of aesthetic expression.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Go behind the scenes and see how Jon Miller shot Himalayan Aerials with his TurboAce Matrix E quadcopter drone.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/ shares how google’s self driving cars passed the U.S. State Self-Driving Test:

What has not been revealed until now, however, is that Google chose the test route and set limits on the road and weather conditions that the vehicle could encounter, and that its engineers had to take control of the car twice during the drive.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Do you want to read a document that neatly specs out the future of personal drones — including the weird, fun, and creepy ways they’ll change society? I’ve got a book for you to read.

It was written in 1974. It was a sci-fi novel aimed at teenage kids. It is: Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy.

Forty years ago, it nailed everything we’re arguing today about personal drones, privacy, and the danger of government overreach.

The Danny Dunn series started in the 1950s, written by Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams. They covered the adventures of the eponymous teenager — who was obsessed with science and engineering — and his friends Irene (herself a physics and biology prodigy) and comic-relief Joe, an artsy type. Danny’s father was dead, so Danny lived with his mother at the home of Professor Bullfinch, a kindly Ben-Franklin-esque scientist whose inventions Danny and his friends inevitably messed with: Antigravity paint, a time machine, a heat ray. A cheesy premise, but Abrashkin and Williams were superb writers who deeply respected the intelligence of the kids reading their books. Much of their basic science was rock solid, and they frequently wove in a liberal moral message: Be curious, fight for fair play and justice, and think for yourself.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

The Razor is a 3D-printed, hand-launchable, fully autonomous U.A.V. developed by Professor David Sheffler in partnership with the Mitre Corporation. The aircraft was built with freely available off-the-shelf parts, including an Android smartphone that acts as the central processor.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Electrical engineers Shengli Fu and Yan Wan from the University of North Texas developed drone prototypes that will fly in pairs and provide wifi during disaster relief efforts. via techly:

Typical wireless connections have a range of about a hundred meters. Fu, Wan, and their colleagues have developed technology that allowed the drones to provide wireless connection access within a range of up to five kilometers or just a little over three miles.

What the researchers did was to equip each of the drones with a directional antenna that can rotate and adjust automatically to create and maintain a strong signal. The drones fly out in pairs because one is made to land in the danger zone or disaster area while the other drone is situated in line of sight of the first drone and within three kilometers or almost two miles. The two drones communicate with each other to provide network access to victims, stranded people, and rescue workers – facilitating faster and more efficient rescue efforts.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

The main argument against drones, at this point, is a safety one: What happens if a drone crashes into a plane? Well now, at least one airport is looking at using drones as a means of protecting planes that land and take off from its runways.

To ensure safe, timely, and accurate delivery, drones would need to deal with a degree of uncertainty in responding to factors such as high winds, sensor measurement errors, or drops in fuel. But such “what-if” planning typically requires massive computation, which can be difficult to perform on the fly.

Now MIT researchers have come up with a two-pronged approach that significantly reduces the computation associated with lengthy delivery missions. The team first developed an algorithm that enables a drone to monitor aspects of its “health” in real time. With the algorithm, a drone can predict its fuel level and the condition of its propellers, cameras, and other sensors throughout a mission, and take proactive measures — for example, rerouting to a charging station — if needed.

The researchers also devised a method for a drone to efficiently compute its possible future locations offline, before it takes off. The method simplifies all potential routes a drone may take to reach a destination without colliding with obstacles.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Drone enthusiast and aerial cinematographer Randy Scott Slavin has created the first-ever drone film festival in NYC, which will be taking place on February 21, 2015. Ruby Love from Fstoppers spoke with Slavin to get more details on his venture:

Slavin created the festival after a short film of his, featuring aerial drone footage of New York City, went viral. Noticing an increasing interest from audiences in drone footage, coupled with a frustration over the focus on legal and ethical issues surrounding drones, Slavin said he wanted to create a festival that showcased the artistic work of drone pilots. Slavin says of drone cinematography, “I want to normalize it and I want to showcase what’s awesome about it…I think the majority of drone pilots really are focused on getting beautiful footage. That’s what it really is, ultimately.”

As a filmmaker, Slavin says, drones are one of the most exciting new camera tools and they offer a stunningly different approach to cinematography. “The most exciting thing about drones-the reason I got into shooting with them-is because as a director, there’s nothing more exciting than camera movement…it’s like, ‘Holy shit. I can put this camera anywhere I want in 3-D space as long as I can fly it there. That’s amazing.’”

The technical skill that goes into drone operation is something Slavin wants to celebrate with this festival. “In order to shoot well, there’s so much technique that goes into it. You can get the drone up into the air and do whatever stupid thing you want, but in order to get really beautiful footage…you really have to know what you’re doing.” Films submitted to the festival will be awarded prizes based on achievements in categories like beautiful visuals, inventive use of equipment, and technical skill.

The festival is in its very early stages, with its venue, prizes, and jury members to be announced soon. Slavin says some of festival’s jury members will be experts in the drone world; others will be experts in the world of filmmaking. While he cannot release the details of who will sit on the jury just yet, Slavin says “I want people who submit films to have their work seen not only by the audiences but by people that can potentially help their careers.”

The Flytrex Live adds internet and social capabilities to your personal drone, and also serves as a traditional black box in case your drone goes missing or crashes. Steve O’Hear from TechCrunch writes:

Personal drone enthusiasts — specifically, those who like flying quadcopters — have a new way to make the experience a lot more social. Meet the Flytrex Live: a ‘black box’-style flight recorder that connects to the Internet in real-time to unlock a burgeoning online community of drone hobbyists who can follow each other’s flight paths, take part in challenges and, in future, fly in groups.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

What was also interesting was seeing how my kids reacted to the Drones. They loved it – and thought it was the most natural thing ever. In their lives, seemingly outlandish technology has been normalised.

Technology is fun. Technology is largely driven by grown men who played Sonic the Hedgehog as children and now create new, playful forms of technology. The iPad has a much younger audience than intended and Drones may also hold a fascination for children.

I wonder if my family are reaching saturation point with trying to have fun with technology? The answer, I think, is no. They can’t get enough.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Researchers at MIT and Cornell University hope to change that by providing photographers with squadrons of small, light-equipped autonomous robots that automatically assume the positions necessary to produce lighting effects specified through a simple, intuitive, camera-mounted interface.

At the International Symposium on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization, and Imaging in August, they take the first step toward realizing this vision, presenting a prototype system that uses an autonomous helicopter to produce a difficult effect called “rim lighting,” in which only the edge of the photographer’s subject is strongly lit.

According to Manohar Srikanth, who worked on the system as a graduate student and postdoc at MIT and is now a senior researcher at Nokia, he and his coauthors —MIT professor of computer science and engineering Frédo Durand and Cornell’s Kavita Bala, who also did her PhD at MIT — chose rim lighting for their initial experiments precisely because it’s a difficult effect.

“It’s very sensitive to the position of the light,” Srikanth says. “If you move the light, say, by a foot, your appearance changes dramatically.”

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

As part of La Blogotheque’s Take Away Show, the band Phoenix performs their song ‘Entertainment’ live in the gardens of Le Chateau de Versailles as a drone circles around them, filming in one continuous shot. Read more.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

In an effort to address its air pollution issues, China deployed drones to detect illegal emissions of over 200 factories. via Time:

In the country’s first aerial pollution-monitoring efforts, China deployed 11 unmanned vehicles in June designed to detect illegal nighttime emissions from 254 factories using infrared lights and thermal imaging, according to a Saturday statement from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Covering over 2000 square km. in 20 hours, the small- and medium-sized drones monitored cities in Hebei and Shanxi, provinces heavily polluted by city smog and coal mining emissions. The drones also surveyed cities in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, another northern area suffering from mining-related pollution and dust storms.

In all, the drone data resulted in 64 companies being suspected of violating of environmental laws, said the Ministry’s statement. The major infractions included air pollutants exceeding safe atmospheric concentrations, unregulated smoke emissions and improper functions of desulfurization plants and waste water facilities. The next step will involve conducting on-the-ground investigations of sites, the results of which will be released to the public.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

According to my best reading of a notice the FAA announced on Monday, things like the US $154 Husban X4 quadcopter are no longer toys—they are true drone aircraft in the FAA’s eyes and cannot be flown without a certificate of authorization or special airworthiness certificate.

Huh?

Up to now, the FAA has been distinguishing model aircraft from small drones (or small unmanned aerial systems, to use the FAA’s preferred terminology) according to whether they are flown for recreation or for commercial purposes. If you want to fly a 20-kilogram, turbine-powered radio-controlled model airplane, go right ahead, so long as you only do it as a hobby. Fly a 2-kilogram electric foamy for compensation, and you’re breaking the rules against commercial drone use, though. That was the basic argument the FAA had made against Raphael Pirker, who was issued with a $10,000 fine for flying a model airplane for hire in 2011.

Pirker contested the fine and prevailed in court this past March. Administrative Law Judge Patrick G. Geraghty held in Pirker’s favor, pointing out that the logical extension of the FAA’s arguments about what defines a regulated aircraft would extend to something as small as a paper airplane or balsa-wood glider. The FAA has appealed that decision, which has yet to be taken up by the full National Transportation Safety Board.

In the meantime, the FAA’s small-drone-policing empire is striking back. This week’s FAA notice not only reiterates the FAA’s position that the definition of “model aircraft” requires that the flying be only for recreation, the agency now asserts that the operator must be looking directly at the model in flight, not piloting it with video goggles or other other high-tech vision aids. By logical extension, that must mean that flying video-camera-equipped model airplane or ‘copter using, say, an iPad screen or a video monitor of any type makes it no longer fit the FAA’s definition of a model aircraft.

I’m loudly crying “foul” here because the FAA’s latest announcement just torpedoed a hobby I took up in 2009: flying radio-controlled models in First-Person-View, or FPV, mode. Over the past five years, this angle on the hobby has grown in popularity, particularly with the proliferation of autopilot-equipped multicopters, which are now inexpensive and can be flown by just about anyone.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Youtube user questpact share his technique for using a 3d printing pen to draw out the shape of some replacement props for his drone!

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.

Michael Schoner has been getting some help and suggestions for Coathanger Chopper, a remote-controlled coat-hanger project, in the Adafruit Forums. Here’s one of the elements he’s working on now:

I’m trying to fix some bugs on my flying coat-hanger. It’s actually a coat-hanger powered by two computer fans that are remote controlled. It is hanging with counter weights on a mobile so it can move around. Now I bought your slip rings to solve the 12 volt power feeding without braking the cable through twisting it too much. I have two mini ones and one with a flange… (read more)

And here are notes from the last version of this project installed in a gallery back in 2012:

The Coathanger Chopper is a remote-controlled coat-hanger, dangling from a mobile, which allows it to move around in space.

It is powered by two 1,8 watt computer fans, that can be tilted up and down like the eyebrows of Number 5 (the robot of the 1986 movie “short circuit”), thus causing the hanger to spin or move for – or backward. The downward draft of the rotors causes light cloth to wave. In motion the cloth appear to be floating, sometimes moving slow sometimes slinging by fast on the levers of the mobile. Two kilos of salt and one kilo of sugar act as counterweights.

The Coathanger Chopper was shown as part of Amsterdam’s fashion exhibition Winter Salon in collaboration with Painted (Saskia van Drimmelen and Margreet Sweerts). The installation at Droog Designs’s flagship store featured a large projection of the song “The One” by Toversex (Pieter Wackers and Erzsi Pennings) starring Natascha De Jong dancing.
Behind a wooden screen people could try on knitwear out of the “Secrets” collection and place an order.
(read more)

]]>http://www.adafruit.com/adablog/?feed=rss2&p=1190120The most delicious drone of all is a drone made of chocolate #Dronedayhttps://blog.adafruit.com/2014/06/16/the-most-delicious-drone-of-all-is-a-drone-made-of-chocolate-droneday/
https://blog.adafruit.com/2014/06/16/the-most-delicious-drone-of-all-is-a-drone-made-of-chocolate-droneday/#commentsMon, 16 Jun 2014 14:01:09 +0000http://www.adafruit.com/blog/?p=117831

Make a quadcopter out of chocolate? Why not? Technabob has the story on Willy Wonka’s UAV.

We’ve seen quadcopters made from a bicycle rim, a keyboard and a dead cat. RIP Orville. That makes this quadcopter with a chocolate frame par for the course here at Technabob, but it certainly is the most delicious drone we’ve ever seen.

The frame was made by melting, molding and then freezing 1000g of dark chocolate and 100g of white chocolate. Also you have to be a dancing chef to make one.

DARPA claims to have developed a hack-proof drone. It’s only hack-proof until it gets hacked. via defense tech:

The Pentagon’s research arm unveiled a new drone built with secure software that prevents the control and navigation of the aircraft from being hacked.

The program, called High Assurance Cyber Military Systems, or HACMS, uses software designed to thwart cyber attacks. It has been underway with the Defense Advance Research Project Agency for several years after originating at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Washington, said Kathleen Fischer, HACMS program manager for DARPA.

“The software is designed to make sure a hacker cannot take over control of a UAS. The software is mathematically proven to be invulnerable to large classes of attack,” Fisher said.

The mini drone is engineered with mathematically assured software making it invulnerable to cyber attack. Citing the success of mock-enemy or “red-team” exercises wherein cyber experts tried to hack into the quadcopter and failed, Fisher indicated that DARPA experts have referred to the prototype quadcopter as the most secure UAS in the world.

Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.